1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a system for machine maintenance. More particularly, the present invention concerns a system for remotely monitoring a machine at a location, receiving information (including assembly, installation or repair instructions) from an expert at another location about the machine and for remotely identifying and ordering one or more components, subcomponent or parts for a machine.
2. Reference to Related Art
Modern manufacturing operations depend upon machines to perform all manner of tasks. Indeed, machines have become so important to today's economy that the failure of even a single machine (e.g., an automotive assembly machine) can cost a manufacturer many thousands of dollars for every minute that the machine is disabled. Therefore, an important element of any manufacturing operation is the care and maintenance of its machines. To this end, it is essential that a manufacturer have in place a maintenance system that is designed to keep its operations and its machines running at peak performance levels.
Regardless of the lengths to which a manufacturer might go to maintain its machines in good working order, an inevitable aspect of a typical maintenance program involves machine repairs. Unfortunately, if the machine in need of repair it is often necessary to call in an outside expert or engineer to execute the required repair. If this outside expert is located beyond the manufacturer's local area, he or she must be flown in and possibly housed overnight. Furthermore, if the machine in need of repair is a custom designed machine or has certain unique features, it may be necessary for the manufacturer to keep the expert “on call”, which can significantly increase the manufacturer's overall repair budget.
No matter where the expert is located, until the repair is accomplished, the manufacturer must try to continue its operations without the machine. However, depending upon the machine and the size of the manufacturer, continued operations may not be possible until the repairs are complete. Therefore, it should be clear that prior art systems that rely upon the arrival of on-site experts are not cost effective, are inefficient and can have a significant impact on revenue and employment.
In addition to machine repairs, an effective maintenance system must also allow the user to order and purchase replacement parts. The current art provides an order process for machine parts whereby the owner of a machine identifies a part for replacement, contacts a manufacturer or distributor of the part, and places an order. There are, however, several disadvantages to the present art. One such disadvantage is the time, effort, and expense required to identify the part by description and part number. Typically, this involves a process whereby the owner of the machine must power down the machine and remove one or more components to isolate the component containing the part to be replaced. Once the owner isolates the component, the owner must further disassemble the component to locate the subcomponent or part to be replaced. Once disassembled, the owner must identify reordering information located on the part itself and on the machine; e.g., a part number and a model number for the machine.
A second disadvantage is the time, effort, and expense associated with locating a factory approved replacement source and placing an order. Typically, this location process involves multiple phone calls to various sources in an attempt to locate the replacement part, or lengthy reorder forms that must be manually completed and submitted to one or more sources. As can be seen, the aforementioned reordering steps result in periods of downtime for the machine involved, thus incurring significant costs attributed to the lost productivity during those periods of downtime; the manual labor involved in identifying the part to be ordered; and the manual process by which an order is placed.
Therefore, what is needed is a maintenance system that allows repairs to be accomplished quickly and a fast, efficient, end-to-end order process whereby an owner of a machine (hereafter, customer) can readily identify a part to be replaced and electronically order that part based on the identification information.